The year was 1845. Old John Chapman walked through the countryside with a hunger in his belly and an exhaustion in his mind. He was tired from a long day of planting apple trees, trading saplings, and tending to his nurseries. The locals knew him as Johnny Appleseed, a moniker he’d picked up after years of traveling the United States as a nurseryman and all around green-thumb. He would purchase plots of land and plant his apple seeds, fence them off and head to the next plot, a continual mission that brought the American apple to fruition. He wore a tin pot for a hat, threadbare and torn clothes, and had no shoes to speak of. His beard was long and gray, and his eyes looked like they’d hadn’t had good rest in years.

Trailing behind him was his companion, a wild wolf that he’d helped a year or so back. It had a broken leg when they’d met, and Johnny, who was also a known healer and herbalist, mended the wolf’s leg and befriended it. He followed him around ever since, and he didn’t mind the company. Appleseed never named the wolf, and just referred to him as “friend.”

When it came to the subject of apple planting, Johnny didn’t believe in grafting, as his religion told men not to meddle with nature, so instead of re-propagating from well producing trees, Johnny would gather all of his seeds from the leftover pomace at cider houses. The apples he planted were small and hard, as was common for wild apples, and were not of the edible variety, but perfect for the brewing of fine hard ciders.

Johnny spied a large willow tree and decided to camp there for the night. He banged on his tin pot cap three times to alert the wolf that their journey was over for today. They slinked over to the tree, and Johnny took off his pack and started a small campfire. He took the pot off his head and placed it over the fire, adding a little spring water from his canteen and some beans a kindred farmer had traded him for a sapling. He also tossed in some brown button mushrooms he had harvested from a fallen tree on the outskirts of Millhaven farm.

Although Johnny was a vegetarian, his wolf companion was not. The wolf darted into the twilight, and returned with five fattened rabbits to gnaw on, dropping one in front of Johnny. The wolf’s mind could not comprehend how the man would reject the fresh meat, yet Johnny waved it off as he did every night. The wolf nodded, and picked the rabbit back up into its maw, and walked to the other side of the fire to start his feast. Johnny didn’t like seeing animals hurt, but understood that was the wolf’s nature, and loved him all the same.

Johnny retrieved a wooden spoon from his bag and slurped down his bean and mushroom stew as fast as possible. He was nearly as hungry after finishing the pot, and eyed the wolf as it gulped down the last rabbit whole. Appleseed shook his head, grabbed an old rag from his pack and used it as a pillow as he laid down to count the stars. His eyebrows furrowed as he realized he’d probably grown more apples in his lifetime than the amount of stars he could see in the sky. He was asleep in seconds.

He dreamt of nothing but apples.

The howling wolf awoke Johnny from his slumber. At first he was angry with the beast, but then he realized the camp was surrounded by oddly dressed men. They had subdued the wolf, and now were walking towards Appleseed. “Please, friends, I have nothing of value, please leave the wolf and I alone and be on your way.”

The men didn’t stop walking towards him. They pointed strange metallic shapes towards him, and he began to feel stinging all over his body as he fell to the ground shaking. The pain was severe enough to put him under, and all became dark. He once again dreamt of apples.

He awoke in an entirely new place, laying in a bed so soft that it brought tears to Appleseed’s eyes. “What kind of goose could grow such a softened feather?” He asked softly to the heavens.

“That ain’t no featherbed, Mr. Appleseed. That there is a memory foam mattress,” said one of the oddly dressed men who’d taken him in the night.

Johnny was too confused to question the man, too enamored with the softness of the mattress to lunge at the man and try to escape. He realized the wolf was right beside him, it’s mouth wide and drooling as it too had never felt such comfort. He became frightened when he saw a small glass ball become illuminated with the light of the sun, as if a blazing star had entered the room itself.

“Oh yeah, you’ve probably never seen a lightbulb before, huh Mr. Appleseed. Uh, I don’t think I have the expertise to explain it, but basically, you can have bright light at night without a candle.”

Johnny couldn’t believe his eyes, actual light captured in a glass. Wherever he was, it certainly was no longer Indiana. He passed out again from the shock of seeing electricity for the first time.

Once again, he dreamt of nothing but apples.

When he awoke, the wolf was standing above him on the bed, growling at the group of men watching them. Johnny shot up, and one of the men raised his hand to calm him. “Mr. Appleseed, I am extremely sorry to frighten you, and to take you and your dog from the camp last night. I’m going to make this quick, and try to explain the best I can. We are currently in the year 2185, quite far from your hometime of 1845. We are in what used to be known as the Midwest of the former United States of America, before it had been given to Austria to govern, but that was little more than political theater, Austria never had a chance to govern the United States,” said one of the oddly dressed men, taking a break to sip something out of a cylindrical tube.

Johnny Appleseed’s face was deathly serious, he looked directly into the man’s eyes as his story continued. “You see, before the fall of mankind, there had been a longstanding peace. And during that peace, farms were cleared out. Uhh, I’m not sure how to explain this part to you, but there were great machines that just made food appear. No need for an apple tree if a metal machine could produce one on the spot, right? Are you following me?”

Johnny still had a stoic face, and gave the slightest nod that he at least understood the idea. “Great, thank you Mr. Appleseed, you are a shrewd man. So, once world peace came to an end, Long Mile’s food machines stopped producing, and it wasn’t long before everything and everyone was wiped out. Now there are just pockets of us around the world, the last of humanity. No society, no hope. Well, that's where you come in, Mr. Appleseed! We were lucky enough to come across a working time machine, which in simple terms opened up a door into 1845 from 2185! It only had enough charge for one go, so we decided that Ol’ Johnny Appleseed would be the best choice to help us learn to grow our own orchards and save what is left of mankind,” finished the oddly dressed man, a big smile on his face as he looked to Johnny.

Johnny looked back at him, then looked around at the other men. They had odd markings around their eyes, and they were portly for men their age. He had barely understood what the man had said to him, but he understood these men were in need of food, and Appleseed had always loved to lend a helping hand, especially if it was to save mankind. “Well, by God’s grace I shall help ye and teach ye how to yield saplings from seeds, and trees from saplings, and onwards to orchards. I’ll ask ye though, what seeds have you all collected? For the pips in my bag only yield apples suited for the brewing of cider. They are too small and hard to eat,” Johnny said, scratching behind the wolf’s ear as its leg bounced up and down.

The men looked at each other, fear and panic setting in. “But, uhh, Mr. Appleseed… Your bag is filled to the brim with seeds, we checked, isn’t there… Are you KIDDING ME? The LEGENDARY Johnny Appleseed didn’t plant edible freaking apples? Of course we don’t have any seeds, you dunce, you moron! Food has been 3D printed since before we were born, not that you’d understand that, little hard apple guy!” The man screamed at Johnny.

The oddly dressed men began looking wicked and wild. They slapped their faces and started moaning and punching walls. One of the men pointed directly at Johnny as his left nostril flared in a disturbing way. “Youuuuu! You ruined humanity. The great and powerful Johnny Appleseed can’t feed humanity, at least with apples. Lock him up boys. Lock up the beast, too. Looks like Appleseed w/ wolf haunch is on the menu tonight.”

Johnny began to stand, but was instantly subdued again by the metallic object from one of the men’s hands. He and the wolf both passed out, and were dragged to a holding cell. As he was unconscious, he dreamed of apples. When he awoke in the cell, he realized the men had left his tin pot hat on him. He quickly got a fire going, put the pot over it, and threw in some apple seeds he had in his pocket. After a minute, the seeds were glowing white with heat. Johnny put on one of his leather weeding gloves, and picked up the molten seeds. He started coughing and called for help.

When the men arrived, Johnny smirked, looking at them with darkness in his eyes. “You have stolen me from my home and threatened to eat me after I offered help. Be gone with ye,” Johnny said in a serious guttural growl. He flicked the seeds one at a time into each man’s forehead. The molten seeds sizzled as they slowly melted away the skin, sinking into the skulls and completely cooking the men’s minds. Each one dropped dead, and the key to the cell bounced right up to Johnny’s foot. He grabbed it, and freed him and the wolf.

After a few months of traveling the land, and planting a few orchards along the way, because he couldn’t help it, Johnny Appleseed found a beautiful island on a lake that hadn’t been completely destroyed in whatever happened in this new world. He harvested mushrooms, kept himself and the wolf fed, and built himself a nice log cabin to finally settle down in. Sure, he missed his friends and family in 1845, but with the new “memory foam” mattress he had acquired, he didn’t find it difficult to enjoy his new lakeside island. One morning, after brewing some dandelion tea, he was play-wrestling with the wolf. It accidentally nipped him, and he didn’t feel well the rest of the day. He looked in the mirror later, and saw his mouth was completely covered in foam.

…

Back in 1845, the townspeople of Fort Wayne, Indiana prayed for Johnny Appleseed’s soul. He had gone missing, and they finally declared him deceased on March 18th of that year. John Chapman, a loving and Godly man, had brought apples to the United States, kindness to the people he met, and had become a folk hero in the process.